6 August 1999

I guess it’s time to flip my office calendar over to August now. For six days, I’ve been looking at the mini-month in the corner rather than actually standing up and turning the page.

So it seems that, just as the nasty funk of the past month or so is starting to lift (maybe), I’m now coming down with a cold. Fine. I give up. I’m just going to sit in a corner with Irma and pout until the rainy season arrives. The hell with everything.

Don’t worry, though. I’ll still sneak out for Tuesday’s birthday non-event. But right now, all I want to do is go to bed, read my new White Castle book for a while, and then sleep for a very long time.

While I’m asleep, I will not think about the following:

My long-term financial, geographic, or mental status.
The fact that there will not be one single candidate worth considering in this year’s mayoral election and that we’ll therefore be stuck with Emperor Willie for four more years.
The diseased lung I looked at while working on (irony of ironies) an anti-smoking website last night.
Sex (or lack thereof).
The asshole next door who has this tendency to work on his ugly orange convertible right outside my office window at all hours of the day and night.
Ways to keep that miserable orange convertible from ever bothering me again.

Birthday Season

Please add three years to the cake above for accuracy. And for those of you who are interested, my semi-public birthday gathering is now officially scheduled.

Seems birthday season is here. Tonight, I celebrated my ex-roomie’s birthday with 11 friends and acquaintances at El Trebol on 24th Street in the Mission. I almost hesitated to mention the name of the place, as it was also a Best of the Bay winner last week. While getting one of these awards last year didn’t ruin Planet SOMA, a restaurant is a far more fragile thing.

Great dinner. Great cake. And I get to go to sleep secure in the knowledge that Dan is (and will always be) eight days older than me.

Things I love this week:

Birthday presents from Duncan and Patric (one of them being the White Castle book, so scratch that from the list)
WKRP in Cincinatti
Bumblebee Tuna for 60 cents a can at Lucky
The fog
The new living room couch I’ll have this weekend. Finally.

28 July 1999

Haven’t been doing much writing lately except on the journal side of the page. Look to your left under “recently added” and you’ll see what I mean. There hasn’t been anything really new and noteworthy there in almost three months (since I Want My Recession Back). I’m not sure if this means that I need inspiration or that I need to take a break.

As if I haven’t been taking a break already.

I guess it’s just that I’ve been really moody lately and I fear that if I write anything more than these easy journal entries (which have been coming pretty regularly), it might sound either whiny or more bitter than usual. Plus, I think my attention span has suffered tremendously as a result of the restlessness and general uneasiness about life I’m feeling lately.

Closely related is the fact that I need to get out of town very soon, whether for a vacation or permanently. I haven’t really been anywhere since Christmas, which is an exceedingly long time for me. The time just hasn’t seemed right, what with all this year’s changes at work and at home, etc.

Anyway, I’m going to try to write more, or, barring that, get rid of that damned “recently updated” section. I’m also going to try to stop sitting around the house doing nothing (but wondering why my “to do” pile keeps growing). Maybe the latter will have some impact on the former.

As it stands now, though, I’m making no promises that I’ll get better about answering the email…

Sweatshirt Update

Quickie update for those worried about my favorite sweatshirt (see below): when I headed back to the laundromat this morning to see if they had a lost and found, I was surprised to find all my duds still sitting in the very dryer I’d put them in fourteen hours earlier. This demonstrates that (a) San Francisco really IS like a small town and (b) the folks at Brain Wash are not particularly attentive.

The Summer of ’82

Seventeen years ago tonight, I was on the radio for the first time. I vaguely remember that the music I played included “Mesopotamia” by the B-52s, “From the Air” by Laurie Anderson, and “Love Steet” by the Doors. And there was this public service announcement for the Runaway Hotline which started “cold out here…dark too…”, which became sort of a running gag among my friends and family for years.

Actually, it’s still a running gag among some of us, especially my Dad.

That was a great summer. I met some of the people who remain among my closet friends to this day, including Duncan and Carroll. My taste in music moved more from the 1960s and 1970s into the 1980s.

In honor of the occasion, I spent last night helping give birth to a bouncing baby website for the Swingin’ Utters. Punk rock sure has changed. Friday night used to mean going out and getting plastered while slowly developing tinnitis. Now it means sitting in an apartment in Lower Haight with Mom, Dad, and the cutest baby in the world working on the website.

Oddly enough, I have no major objection to this change…

What I have objections to this morning is the way that Southwest Airlines is fucking over my friend Scott who was scheduled to arrive from Detroit at 1:00. It’s noon now. He’s still in Detroit. His itinerary has been changed four times and they STILL can’t tell him when he’ll be leaving (or when or where he’ll be arriving). This is why I never fly, except in emergencies. Airlines in general suck and couldn’t give a rat’s ass about customer service.

Off to the laundromat now, as I seem to have an extra day to kill…

Inertia and the Weather

I’ve come to the disturbing conclusion that the only things keeping me in San Francisco are the climate and a bad case of inertia.

Apart from these two factors and a few friends I’d miss quite severely, I can’t really think of any good reason why I’m still here. San Francisco isn’t really fun anymore. The city has changed. I’ve changed. Why am I stressing over living in an overpriced city which is losing many of the very characteristics I was willing to pay extra to be near?

I keep trying to convince myself otherwise, but the truth is I just don’t like it here very much anymore. A lot of it is related to all the changes here: the gentrtification, the crowding, the fact that SF is becoming a “cute” little strip mall, etc. It’s not fun anymore. The city has become a very career-obsessed sort of place, a haven for overachievers, thanks in large measure to the northward creep of the soulless Silicon Valley culture (or lack thereof).

But I’m not blind to changes in my own life either. I no longer feel the need to be near a large “gay community” (whatever the hell that is). Having a sex club within walking distance is no longer a priority. I’ve learned that the world is not divided into “San Francisco” and “everywhere else”.

Basically, I’m no onger willing to pay twice as much rent to live someplace which no longer offers me twice the benefits. Hmmm… a cost-benefit analysis. Now there’s a concept my new neighbors might understand.

I’ve been hinting about it off and on for a year or two, but I’d like to announce officially at this point that I’m leaving San Francisco. I haven’t decided exactly when I’m leaving or where I’m going. But I’m getting the hell out. Sometime.

I have to stay here at least another week, though, because my nose itches (which means company’s a-comin’). On Saturday, yer humble host welcomes Scott from Detroit. Scott’s never been here before. Scott was raised in the closest thing San Francisco has to a polar opposite. This should be interesting to watch…

8 July 1999

So I’ve decided to put the mid-life crisis on hold, at least until my birthday. Irma will be posting a list of appropriate consolation gifts soon, as you have only 33 shopping days left.

I’m too damned busy this week to have a crisis anyway. Aside from work, I’m also noticing that this week seems to be “Take Planet SOMA Seriously Week”. I’m honored, if perplexed, that anyone really cares what I have to say.

At the risk of sounding “full of myself”, here are a few examples:

There was my recent “revealing” interview and review in Nightcharm. That was fun.
Time Magazine (wow…talk about “legitimate”) currently has a link to my former Harvey Milk page on its site.
In the past few weeks, sections of Planet SOMA have been featured in two Yahoo “Full Coverage” pages: one on gentrification and one on SF’s Gay Pride Weekend.
In the past two days, I’ve been approached to do two interviews on the “gentrification in San Francisco” issue.

The mind boggles, no? The big question, of course, is how I can make all this new-found fame (or notoriety) help pay the rent? I’ll accept any ideas other than those saying I should pose nekkid again. Oh, what the hell. I’ll listen to those too.

Maybe I should just take a nap and ponder on this for a few minutes. Or maybe I should just take a nap. Period.

While I’m asleep, feel free to check out today’s links du jour:

Saddle Sores (this one’s a bit overdue, so go here first)
Planet Mary
Ginger

Maybe more when I wake up. but I doubt it. I’m usually pretty groggy…

Mid-life Crisis

Another one of those troublesome sleepless nights. Excuse me while I think out loud. I think I’m having a mid-life crisis. I’ll be 35 next month. I’m entitled.

I don’t like my life right now. Not one bit. It’s boring, I feel really stressed, and I’m not accomplishing much of anything. I’m living in an apartment I can’t really afford in a city which increasingly annoys me. I have no social life to speak of, which wouldn’t bother me if I were using my time alone productively, but I’m not. I have a part-time job and I do some freelance work (neither of which I really envision ever completely paying the bills). And I’m smoking way too much.

This is not a whine, nor a plea for comforting pats on the back. It’s just a statement of fact. I need to be doing something radically different. It’s very possible that I also need to be living someplace radically different.

Give me a little leeway. I’m trying to work out a life plan here.

First and foremost, it’s time to consider the unthinkable: the fact that I should get a real, normal full-time job. It’s been two and a half years since I’ve had one, and I’ve finally realized that all this spare time is a large part of what’s keeping me from getting anything done.

Again, please hold the “you do a great web site which entertains many people” email. This kind of ego boost is alwys welcome, of course, but it’s not really what I need right now. Tonight is more of a “swift kick in the butt” kind of evening. Specific job offers, of course, would be quite appropriate at this point. Even if I don’t accept them, they might offer an idea what I should be doing next.

At this point, I’ll also request there be no email of the “you should be a writer” or “you should be a web designer” sort. I KNOW I should be one or the other (or maybe even something else completely unrelated). What I’m looking for here is specifics rather than general advice. But thanks all the same.

I’m still thinking out loud. I’m not really even looking for feedback necessarily, although there has to be a headhunter or a career counselor somewhere out there.

I know a little about a lot of subjects, but I fear I don’t know enough about any one single subject to be particularly marketable. Take web design: I’m good at it, I make fast, great-looking pages, and I can organize large amounts of information really well. But I’m not really a programmer. I have absolutely no interest in ever becoming more of a programmer than I am. And that’s becoming a big weakness. I’m also not cut out to let freelance and contract work be my only source of income.

I like to write. I’m even fairly good at it, some have said. I might even be able to edit, if pushed. But how do I go about doing these things? The problem is, of course, that I’m in a bit of a hurry. Anyone out there starting a magazine about urban culture and history and looking for someone who can write a column and create your web site? Hell…I’ll even make the damned coffee…

I have lots of interests and a well of knowledge on a number of subjects, none of which really translate into any sort of job that I can identify. I manage people well, I’m pretty good at organizing projects, and I love doing research. There’s got to be a job in there somewhere, but I’m damned if I know what it is.

I’ll stop for now, but I reserve the right to continue tomorrow on the subjects of San Francisco, my social life, and the fact that I haven’t had actual sex in an actual bed in a really long time. Or maybe I’ll just skip it…

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